


All That Is Lost

by Kerrigore



Series: Sad Dad Adventures [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon Universe, Character Study, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, I Can't Write Straight Angst, M/M, Nightmares, Post Old Soldiers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, So There's Some Fluff, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 09:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11688762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerrigore/pseuds/Kerrigore
Summary: Jack is having a hard time coming to terms with his last encounter with Reaper...





	All That Is Lost

_… And all that is found,_

_Lingers behind me,_

_Was left underground._

 

_Memories of laughter,_

_Long since past._

_Who knew that breath,_

_Would be your last?_

 

_I long for your kisses._

_I long for your touch._

_Sometimes this world,_

_Seems like too much._

 

* * *

 

 A coarse desert wind brushed the dry, worn stone of the ancient city. What stood as a revered monument to the dead now only served to house two broken ghosts. And, Jack wasn't sure there should even be that many.

He sat on the edge of a precipice, bottle of whiskey in hand, legs dangling over a pit carved in the ruins of Necropolis. As Jack took a drink, he briefly wondered how far down it went, what was at the bottom, or if there was even one at all, though, he supposed that didn't matter. He'd already hit it a long time ago.

_“I’ve been looking for you Jack.”_

He took another drink, eyeing the darkness, which seemed to creep up the smooth sides of the pit’s walls to greet him.

_Bet it goes straight to Hell._

Jack managed a chuckle, focusing on the bite of his drink. Even at his age, it still required too much to get Jack buzzed. Truth be told, the action was more soothing to him than the contents of the bottle; the repetition, the return to old habits.

_“I knew it would take more than that to kill you.”_

Jack wasn't sure he was really alive. He wasn't sure of much anymore. Admittedly, Jack was still trying to come to terms with the fact that Reaper was Gabriel, _his_ Gabriel. A hand of Talon. A terrorist. A mercenary. A wraith. He couldn't have been the same man he’d loved (and who was he kidding — still did) and mourned for the past six years and yet…

_“Are you sure that was him Ana?” Jack glanced over to his left. They'd temporarily holed up in a building far enough away from Hakim’s compound, both sitting on a dusty couch._

_She didn't answer immediately, eye closed, focused on her breathing. “It was.”_

_Jack felt his heart stall._

_“And wasn't. Gabriel’s face was under that mask Jack, but he's not as either of us remember.”_

_He drew a breath through his nose, and Ana's hand was on his then. He hadn't noticed until that point how tightly he'd been gripping his pulse rifle. “What did you see?”_

_Ana shook her head and squeezed his hand. “Something I wasn't meant to.”_

_“I need to know Ana.”_

_“In time, perhaps, but I won't be the one to further burden your nightmares.” She offered him a smile._

_“I… Gabe…” They both knew he already haunted Jack's mind. Images of Gabriel dying: burning, impaled, crushed; playing like a cruel film reel in the restless twilight hours._

_Ana was trying not to make it worse._

_The slew of unanswered questions was doing that for him._

_What happened to you Gabriel?_

_“I have a base outside the city,” Ana said, keeping her tone light._

_Jack nodded. It made sense to go there. “And then what?”_

_“We rest and formulate a plan.”_

It had gone unspoken between them at the time, but they were both determined to find Gabriel again. Jack knew what he'd hoped to achieve; he just didn't think it was possible. Well, most of him didn't. The small remnant of the fool he used to be still held onto that faint glimmer, that hope of redeeming his greatest failure in the eyes of the man he’d lost.

No matter the personal cost.

Gabriel was, and had always been everything. Too bad he'd acknowledged it too late.

Jack raised the bottle in a toast to no one (the dead maybe), and drank what was left. He stood, peered into the abyss, and let the bottle slip from his fingers, plummeting out of sight.

He stayed, waiting to hear it break.

It would be so easy to step over the edge, to fall, to just… let go, and stop fighting. But then, if he did that, how would he rise? Jack hadn't crawled out of the ruins of Zurich for nothing, hadn't lost everything just to give in. There was a debt to pay: to take down those who'd done so to them. _To Gabriel._

But Gabriel had survived too. He'd survived and was on the opposite side of a new war.

So where did that leave Jack?

_Where I was before. Without you._

He turned and walked away from the darkness that threatened to swallow him, having never heard the bottle shatter.

 

* * *

 

“You're still awake,” a voice behind him said, smooth and warm with the lulling presence of a radio DJ. The arm draped over his waist tightened, bidding him closer. A nose nuzzled into the back of his neck, followed by the itch of a beard. “You should try to sleep Jackie.”

“I certainly won't be able to if you keep doing that.” It only got worse. Jack couldn't hold back his bubbling laughter. He whined, “Gabe. Stop.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Gabriel rubbed his beard into Jack's neck with fervor.

Jack kept laughing, trying to turn in Gabriel’s grip. He succeeded, only for Gabriel’s beard to meet his face with all of the care of sandpaper. Jack put a hand on either side of Gabriel’s head, smooshing his cheeks. “You're terrible,” Jack gave him a kiss, effectively stopping Gabriel’s efforts to annoy him.

Gabriel, clearly pleased with himself, kissed him back.

When they broke it, they were both smiling, though Gabriel’s quickly morphed into a grin. “If I'm so terrible, why did you marry me?”

Jack reached out to caress Gabriel’s cheek with a thumb. “Must have been a lapse in judgment.”

“You've been having a lot of those lately love.” Gabriel spoke from a place of worry. “You need to sleep Jack. This job’ll kill you one of these days.”

“I'll be alright as long as I have you,” Jack said.

He felt Gabriel shift, wrapping his arms around Jack, and pulling him close. Jack lay against his husband’s chest, finding that comfortable place in the crook of his neck. He closed his eyes.

Gabriel sighed. “No guarantee you will.” His grip on Jack tightened. “In a bang or a blink I could be gone. You too.”

“I know. I just… I can't think about that right now.”

There was a pause, and Jack’s chest tightened, air becoming constricting.

“You’re running Jack. Always running,” Gabriel said, voice rougher, having gained a resonant quality. “Too hard, too fast, never looking back at who you left behind.”

Jack shook his head, eyes squeezed shut, nails digging into Gabriel’s chest. “I didn’t.”

“Don't lie to me Jack,” Claws punctured the flesh of Jack's back; a stabbing pain.

He grit his teeth. “I would never leave you Gabe. I love you.”

Gabriel chuckled, cruelty in his tone, “Look at where that got you.”

Suddenly, Jack was no longer being held, and Gabriel’s body was no longer against him. He willed his eyes open and found only darkness. Their bedroom was gone.

“Gabriel,” he called into the void around him.

No reply.

“Gabriel!”

“Right here Jack.”

Reaper materialized in front of him, towering over him, Hellfire shotgun aimed at the center of his chest. Before Jack could react Gabriel fired.

Jack's world turned red.

 

* * *

 

He jolted awake, drenched in sweat, breathing heavily while clutching his chest, fingers tangling in his undershirt.

_There's nothing there. You're alive. There's no wound._

Except the ones he was already riddled with, the ones no one else could see. Jack buried his face in his palms, vaguely aware he'd cried at some point. He tried to reign in his breathing.

_One. Two. In. Out._

His heart hammered in his ears. He reflexively reached for his c-bag, thinking of the several extra whiskey bottles nestled between his clothes.

It was then he noticed Ana. She was standing in the entryway to his little corner of Necropolis.

He froze. She wasn't supposed to be there. Jack had specifically set up his bed far away from his friend. He didn’t want her to have to deal with his problems. He didn’t want to be a burden.

“Nightmare?” she asked, remaining at a distance.

“Yeah,” he returned to rummaging around his c-bag, fingers brushing the edges of an old memory. Instead of the alcohol he'd wanted, he seized a battered photograph, corner split, crease down the center.

“About him?”

Jack nodded, staring at the image of himself, Ana, and Gabriel back when everything was still good.

Ana spoke softly, “I heard you call his name.”

Jack had to push back more tears. He tried to steady his voice, “How do you do it Ana?” Jack didn't look up from the photo. “How do you handle what's going on in here?” He tapped his forehead.

“I pray,” she said. “I think of my family, of the ones I want to protect, and even then I still sometimes struggle with what I've experienced. There's no shame in it Jack.”

And yet he felt it anyway. He should have been stronger than he was, not haunted and broken down by the things that refused to leave him. He was a man who wanted second chances, but didn't expect or deserve them.

“It's hard to keep going Ana, especially when the person you’re fighting for wants you dead.” Jack took a deep breath, a thumb brushing over Gabriel’s face. “And maybe I should let him have what he craves. He blames me for what happened, for what he's become. I can't change that.”

“No, none of us can change the past, but we can look to the future.”

“I'm not so sure there is one,” he said quietly.

“Then make one. You still have reason to keep going. That’s obvious to me.”

He wasn’t going to deny it.

Ana continued, “I know you're afraid Jack. So am I. We don't know what happened to him, or how deeply he's been affected, but there's always a chance to mend what's been broken. He's hurting Jack, but he's still Gabriel, just as you are still you, and I intend to fight until there is nothing left to get him back.” She took a deep breath, resolute. “I hope you're with me on that.”

Jack looked up from the photo, gaze meeting Ana's. “Of course I am.” His tone fell, as if trying to reassure himself. “Of course I am.”

He knew there was a possibility, a strong one if their encounter in Giza was any indication, that the Gabriel they knew was gone for good, lost to pain and hatred.

 _But we have to try._ A voice in his head rang out, the small part of Soldier 76 that was still Jack Morrison. And, for now, he would listen.

“Ana.”

“Yes Jack?”

“I don’t know if I'm going to be able to get back to sleep,” he said. It was both a plea and an admission.

Ana offered him a smile. “I'll be right back.” She only left Jack alone with his thoughts for a few minutes, returning with a steaming cup of tea, a book, and a fold up chair. Ana offered him the tea. “Chamomile with an additional sleep aid.”

“Thanks,” Jack said, watching Ana as she set the chair up by his bedside.

“You plan to stay there all night?” he asked, quirking a brow while he drank the tea.

“If I have to. Someone has to chase away the nightmares, and I told you I have your back.”

Jack smiled, not forced, but genuine. “I appreciate it.” He then took the time to drink all of his tea, returning the cup when he was finished. Jack gave the photo another quick look before slipping it under his pillow, and getting comfortable again.  “Goodnight Ana.”

“ _Layla sā`ida_ , Jack.”

He closed his eyes, letting the drowsiness from the tea take over. Jack faded out to the feeling of strong arms wrapped around him, and the nuzzle of a scratchy beard.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this since the Necropolis map came out. Jack's become a pretty important character to me, especially after it was confirmed at the Anime Expo Overwatch VA panel that Jack has PTSD (husband, who's a veteran, also suffers from the same, and depression, which often comes hand in hand). I wrote this short little character study last weekend at work.
> 
> This was going to be super angsty when I originally thought about the idea, and, of course, it turned out not to be. Yes, there is actually a death pit on Necropolis.
> 
> Thanks for beta reading Andro!


End file.
